Many thanks to Gregor Craigie and the crew at CBC’s On the Island show for reading out my letter on air. As noted, I’m a big fan of the show, and their commitment to correcting the record adds to their credibility as a source of information for Victoria residents and businesses.
My letter was in relation to a September 5 interview with John Wilson, the new CEO of the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve known John for a few years and we get along well, but there were errors in what was presented to the public. It seems some residents and businesses were misled by those errors (they are appearing in comments we are receiving) so the record needs to be corrected.
CBC doesn’t post letters on their website, so here is a copy of what I sent.
From: Dave Thompson (Councillor)
Sent: September 5, 2025 10:32 AM
To: victoria@cbc.ca
Subject: Corrections to parking interview this morning On the Island
Hi there,
I’m a big fan of the show.
I have some corrections in relation to this morning’s segment on the City of Victoria staff report on parking, discussed yesterday in Council chambers.
The interviewee suggested that there could be a “30 percent reduction in parking in the downtown core and 50 percent in the outlying areas”. This suggestion was also made on another radio station.
It’s important that the public understand this is not the case. To be clear, the City is proposing no such thing, and the staff report did not say this.
The interviewee also suggested that this described 30% reduction downtown and 50% reduction in outlying areas would be due in part to parkade reductions. Again, the City is not proposing this, and indeed the City does not own parkades in outlying areas.
Just so your listeners know, the City has approximately 1,800 parking spaces in parkades across downtown, hundreds of which are typically available at any time of day, as well as free parking for the first hour and EV charging. This is in addition to our City-provided street parking, with a total of roughly 70,000 parking spaces provided by the City (City residents own about 50,000 motor vehicles). There are also roughly 40 non-city parkades and parking lots, as well as residential and commercial underground parking.
The proposals are all explained in a staff report available on the City Council meeting website, and discussed yesterday in our Committee of the Whole meeting. I suggest interested residents and businesses consult those materials.
Best regards,
Dave Thompson